I have a funny story that I thought I’d share as it proves that sometimes you can try too hard to do what you think is the right thing, and it comes back and bites you. It’s still funny though so enjoy…

In March of 2024 we moved into our new house, it was a new build and everything was great, but the back garden (yard for my American friends) was just mud. This was a horrible pain as every time Harley (our French Bulldog) went outside, she’d bring back into the house a ton of dirt. So clearly a priority was to get the back garden finished.

We hired a really good designer and gave her a brief, that basically said, low maintenance, lots of plants that were indigenous to Colorado (so they’d survive the winters) and consider water conservation, let’s not use all the water in Erie in summer to keep plants alive.

Our designer came back with a really lovely design (it’s a post on this site if you want to check it out) and we started work in June, finishing late July in time for an August birthday barbeque to celebrate the finished work.

One decision we made was to put in a special type of Bermuda grass that was very hardy, and required little mowing and little water – perfect right? The Bluegrass everyone else had was much cheaper but needed to be mowed every week and required gallons of water in summer, so we figured while this was more expensive to put in the Bermuda grass, in the long run it would be worth it.

The new grass went in and it was lovely, in fact if you look at the posting on the finished garden, that’s the Bermuda grass.

In spring of 2025 Lisa noted that Harley was spending a LOT of time licking her feet, something she hadn’t done when we lived in Washington. So, she had her tested. Guess what? Yup, she’s allergic to Bermuda grass!!!!

Firstly, how come it took us half a year to notice Harley was having problems – that’s pretty bad ☹️. In the end we made the call that there was only one option. We had to have the Bermuda grass pulled up and bluegrass put down! We obviously checked that Harley would be ok with that and of course she was fine.

It appears that not only is Bermuda grass expensive, but once it’s down it’s a terror to pull up (it really takes root), so the cost to pull up the almost brand new Bermuda grass and put down Kentucky Bluegrass was over $5,000.

So, this summer, I mowed every week and watered like there is not tomorrow (and paid the price for all that water), while I watched Harley continue to lick her feet.

Life sometimes sucks!

Told you it was funny.

Every once in a while my friend Steve Downing and I go out on a motorcycle ride into the mountains. Steve is a bit of a local expert and I just follow him and enjoy the sights.

The other day we headed out into a new mountain pass and got to see the fall colors start to appear. Loads of cars had pulled off the road to capture a picture so we stopped too.

The picture I took is below and it doesn’t do the scene justice. It was BEAUTIFUL! It was also a wonderfully clear day with a blue sky and the yellow in the trees just popped.

We suspected that it would look even better over the next few days, but a storm came through and it probably took a lot of leaves with it.

Anyway, I loved the picture and thought I’d share.

Well I promised to post some pictures of the back yard (garden for all you British folks) when it was finished.

The work took just over 4 weeks through some incredibly hot weather. It was over 100°F on some days (38°C) so we kept an ice cooler full of drinks and snacks available for the guys.

The first week was spent prepping and marking out the garden, the second and third was putting down all the pavers adding the irrigation and lighting and the fourth was rock, plants, grass and mulch.

It’s funny, when you see the plans and then look out onto the mud pit (that it once was), you couldn’t really imagine that everything would fit, but I have to say the designer did an amazing job and the contractors who built it followed the plans perfectly.

To say we are delighted and love the garden would be a huge understatement.

We’ve had a couple of BBQ’s already, and there’s still a couple of warm months left so plenty of time for more.

Anyway, here are some pics from the entrance to the garden through to the other side.

We didn’t know it when we first came to Erie, but this is a popular location for flying balloons. They have a number of events over the summer months and this morning there was a big launch a mile from our house.

So Lisa and I got up at 6am (yes really) and biked over to the local field where all the balloons were located.

There were hundreds of people present, all locals I suspect, there with their families and cameras to enjoy the event. In all we saw 8 balloons get inflated, two apparently decided it was too windy and decided not to fly but we saw the others take off.

I have been in a hot air balloon before (a birthday gift from Lisa 20 years ago) and it’s a wonderful experience, so we were quite jealous of the lucky few to took off today.

It was also a perfect morning for the flight, very sunny and around 65°F (18°C), as I write this now at 9:30 in the morning it’s already up to 85°F (29°C), so I’m sure those in the air and enjoying the experience.

As usual, I took a few pictures to share the event:

I guess after living in Colorado now for 9 months I should have gotten used to the amazing sunsets. From my limited experience the best sunsets (so far) have taken place towards the end of the year, but tonight was just beautiful.

So, I thought I’d share it!

This was taken from outside the front of my house at around 8:40 on an iPhone. The colors were just wonderful, so I quickly took the shot.

If I see more like this I’ll take a picture and upload.